I also highly recommend that you play Gradius 1, 2, and 3 in Mame first BEFORE playing any of the Parodiuses.

The 3 parodius arcade games are parodies of Gradius officially made by Konami.

There is much Gradius humor in Parodius you won't understand otherwise.

I also forgot to mention that there also many jabs and pastiches of enemies and bosses from Irem's "R-Type" trilogy: R-type, R-type 2, and R-type Leo.

"Note to Noobs:

We are glad to help you but simply posting that something does not work is not going to lead to you getting help. The more information you can supply defining your problem, the less likely it will be that you will get smart-alec replies.